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African Great Lakes Inform is a groundbreaking online platform that provides cutting-edge information about the African Great Lakes never before available in one place.

How is African Great Lakes Inform different from other data initiatives?

African Great Lakes Inform brings the most critical information on management strategies, programmes, projects, data, maps, and tools into one place for leaders, decision-makers, practitioners and other stakeholders. African Great Lakes Inform does not seek to be a comprehensive database, but rather a platform that integrates and curates the most critical information that is needed to guide decisions in each theme.

Who is African Great Lakes Inform for?

African Great Lakes Inform is for scientists, resource practitioners and decision-makers working on the six themes who want to find and share resources and collaborate to protect, restore and sustainably use the African Great Lakes.

Who is leading African Great Lakes Inform?

African Great Lakes Inform was developed by The Nature Conservancy, under the guidance of the 2017 African Great Lakes Conference and in collaboration with the Lake Tanganyika Authority Secretariat. The Conservancy is managing the site until 2018 when an African Great Lakes Conservation Fund grantee will take over. Although the Conservancy, and eventually a grantee, manages and leads the site, the scientists, leaders and practitioners in the AGL region drive the content on African Great Lakes Inform.

How is African Great Lakes Inform funded?

Initial development of the platform was funded through private foundations. Generous funding from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation created the African Great Lakes Conservation Fund that the Conservancy administers and will support management of the site by a grantee from 2018 to 2020.

Where does your data and information come from?

All content under the resources library has been provided by the African Great Lakes Conference or entities working in the African Great Lakes region. Huge thanks to The Nature Conservancy's Sarah Hagen for working with conference staff and stakeholders to write and post most of the initial content in 2017.

When will people be able to contribute content?

We are working on refining the process of public content contribution to ensure we have a structure in place to review and approve content for accuracy, credibility, and relevance. We expect to begin inviting users to directly contribute content by the end of 2018. In the meantime, please send any requests to add content to the site to African Great Lakes Inform staff via the contact page.

What's the status of the site?

The first version went online in May 2017 at the African Great Lakes Conference. After the conference, African Great Lakes Inform was refined and updated, resulting in the current version which was launched in January 2018. New owners are expected to take over the site in 2018. Stay tuned for updates.

Can I create an account?

Not yet. This feature is anticipated to be available by the end of 2018.

What's the idea behind the core pages of results, strategies and investments?

African Great Lakes Inform is designed to improve information and resource sharing across six themes. As part of this, we do more than give users access to existing resources. We provide context for how a theme is being addressed (Strategies), detail what people are doing (Investments) and highlight what we’ve accomplished (Results).

Why is some content not yet available?

African Great Lakes Inform staff have been hard at work determining what content to showcase on the site, and sourcing the information they find most valuable in sharing. As the new owners take over the site in 2018, they will be working with key stakeholders to refine and publish additional content.